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Sword Coast Stratagems
Sword Coast Stratagems (SCS for short) is a collection of mini-mods for the Enhanced Editions of Baldur's Gate I and II, the original edition of Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, Baldur's Gate TUTU, and Baldur's Gate Trilogy. Although it contains many tweaks and ease-of-use components, it is mostly a tactics mod, intended to make the combats in the game more challenging and interesting. A full install basically rewrites the entire AI system of the game. Features Since there are a lot of tactics mods out there, of very different styles, it's probably simplest to describe the distinctive features of . (I don't want to suggest that all of these are automatically advantages: there are lots of different styles of play, and different mods fit different people.) Some more thoughts of mine on how to assess tactical mods can be found here. *'plays fair.' I've made a fairly sustained effort to ensure that opponents fight by the rules and don't use powers denied to the player (other than obvious things like dragons' breath weapons, liches' ability to see through invisibility, etc!) This is probably most notable for spellcasters - mages don't randomly get uninterruptible spells, improved casting time, free Alacrity, or the like. (In fact, I've removed these powers from creatures in the vanilla game occasionally, though I haven't done so systematically.) However, "fair" is sometimes in the eye of the beholder, and there are also one or two exceptions (notably fiend-summoning by mages and priests), so please do read the component descriptions if this is important to you! *'is almost pure .' mucks around rather little with the core powers of creatures, and hardly at all with their abilities, resistances, saving throws and the like. Its main focus is on getting creatures to do as much as they possibly can with their existing abilities. In particular, its targeting is very careful - hopefully you'll almost never see a mage do something stupid like cast repeated spells at someone immune to that spell. *''is quite low-key in its changes''' Where does modify something other than , it usually does so in a relatively undramatic manner - adding a few more creatures, giving a creature a couple of other magic powers in keeping with powers it's already used, and so forth. It doesn't give new ultra-powerful spells to creatures who didn't have any magic before, or give creatures massive damage resistances, for instance. (Again, there's not necessarily anything wrong with doing this, it's just not what is about). *'is very customisable.' Feel free to install whichever combination of components you like - there is a separate one for each major / tactical change. *'is systematic.' I've tried to be very thorough in making sure that there aren't "gaps" in its modifications - so that all hostile wizards, for instance, and not just some, are upgraded. *'tries to be as compatible as possible.' I've done the best I can to ensure that will install on top of other mods (especially non-tactical ones) without causing problems for either. In particular, dynamically alters its scripts to take (some) account of new magic items introduced by other mods. Overall, playing shouldn't exactly feel like a whole new game - it should feel like the old game, but with your foes acting much more intelligently and realistically. At present, makes no use of the difficulty slider except in the "Beholder's lair" upgrade (which is borrowed from Quest Pack) and in one choice of options for the Mage and Priest components. I hope to introduce difficulty-slider dependence in a future update. also contains a number of other small tweaks to the game. Most of these (especially the spell and item modifications) are intended to modify the game in small ways that are helpful from the point of view of tactical challenge - some make the game a little easier, others make it a little harder. I recommend that all the spell tweaks are installed since the scripts assume that they are present, but it isn't compulsory. On BGT, TUTU and BG:EE versions, SCS also includes a collection of components that improve -related aspects of game-play in small ways - for instance, it implements the useful feature where you can send to inns when you don't need them; it lets you break up pairs like Khalid/Jaheira without having to arrange for one of them to get killed; it lets you choose weapon proficiencies rather than being stuck with the game's preset choices; and it allows Yeslick, the dwarven fighter-cleric, to use axes. Finally, contains a few ease-of-use features (notably, an ease-of-use player script with a large number of convenience features) and a few "flavour" features that don't really affect gameplay but hopefully aid the feeling of immersion in the game world. Enhanced Editions installation *As of SCS v.31 (current version is 32) the mod is fully compatible with EE and needs no more fixes or patches. External links *Readme *Download *Support *Bug reporting thread Category:Tactical AI mods‎